Wednesday, 6 June 2012

The F-word - and why I struggle so much with it

It’s National
Running Day today. Apparently. Well, in the US, anyway. First Wednesday of
June: so make a note for June 5, 2013. I really should be writing
about running. Ah well. Another time.
I am still running, by the way – oh yes, training is going alreight. But I’ll
bore you with my progress, with what’s hindering it and what’s facilitating it,
another time. Having written what I wrote last week, I need to add this bit.
The general idea is that it’ll help, but then again it might not. Ah well.

Following on from my 7S
post, I’m going to expand on my relationship with Portishead (the town, not
the band) and the Bristol area – which is where I’ve lived for the past
thirteen years…

…but which I nonetheless still struggle to call
‘home’. Indeed, when I talk about “going home” I’m normally on the M5, the A42,
the M42 or the M1 and travelling North. Mrs K does not appreciate my failure to
label the town in which we live with our two gorgeous boys as ‘home’ and has
made that unequivocally clear to me on many occasions. That doesn’t make it any
easier for me, mind…

…even now, when I hear the word ‘home’ I think of
Sheffield. Normally it’s 13 Dover Road, sometimes 18 and sometimes other places
in the Hunter’s Bar area. Or Bramall Lane, at a push.

Now for sure, [current address removed] [most
tweets give it away, mind] is the house, the building in which I truly feel at
home, in spite of the fact that there’s still tons of stuff I can never find in
the kitchen. In terms of building, that’s straightforward. If, however, we
allow ‘home’ to encompass the surrounding area… oh that’s where it gets tricky.
Boy oh boy oh boy…

Let me make one thing clear: Portishead has been
good to me. I have built strong relationships here; I live in a house which I
love, opposite a field where the kids can roam and play; and we live within
walking distance of a decent school. I have enjoyed many hours of playing
tennis and cricket; I have commuted reasonable distances to jobs I enjoy or
have enjoyed. So… where’s the flaw?

Well, quite possibly in the previous paragraph. “I
have built strong relationships here”… hmmm, notice the lack of the F-word. Sure,
I’ve made friends here: but not as many as you’d think, considering I’ve been here
since 1999. This is not my most controversial statement, in so much that it is
something I have shared with Karen on numerous occasions. In doing so I would
comment that there is nobody here to whom I can say “Remember that time when we
were younger and…”, to which she has understandably replied that you can’t do
that with all your friends like I do with people with whom I went to school in
Italy. Besides, there is only so much becherovka a man can drink. And
hey, if all your friendships had to be rooted in your teenage years,
FriendsReunited would have fared a darn sight better. So… why the reticence to
acknowledge people who have been kind to me, good to me as ‘friends’?

You know what, I may have figured this out
recently. More often than not, there is no real common ground in those
relationships to play the part of a shared experience. Let me indulge further.
I hesitate not to call friends people whom I rarely ever see but whom I have
met at Bruce Springsteen concerts. There is a starting point of appreciation of
the topic in question, a mutual and unspoken understanding about why we travel
to the other side of the world to see him perform when others turn off the
radio when his records are played, that creates a similar connection. You don’t
have to establish a common platform from nothing: you know from the off that you
share certain values (yes, ‘values’), that you will have lived similar, if not
identical, experiences. I was made all the more aware of this when I started
using Twitter more assiduously earlier in the year, not least to engage with
fellow Sheffield United supporters. There are #twitterblades out there whose
real names I don’t even know, let alone what they do for a living or how old
they are. But that doesn’t matter because there already is common ground in
understanding what it means to be a Blade, why we could never be anything else…
and, more often than not, of being Sheffielders. I touched on this back in Apriland, to a lesser extent, in my 7S
post: and I suspect that you either fully understand where I’m coming from
or think I’m a complete and utter nutter. I doubt there is much scope for anything
in between.

Add to this that I’m at an age where lives change
more than usual, people move away, get married and have kids and you may begin
to understand where my challenge lies right now. I made some very good friends
through cricket, but I haven’t played in years so, even when I see them the
strength of that common ground has declined, for even I can only rant on about
experiences from 2004 for so long. One of them left Portishead: he didn’t
travel far but his life has changed more than the mileage may suggest, so I
don’t enjoy the opportunity to share my love for music, recorded or live, as
much as I did previously. That’s life: I fully understand and accept. There is
similarly one cricket friend whom I see maybe once, twice a month (so not a
huge deal), with whom we don’t just talk about my 53 versus Twyford House but
also about football, politics and just about anything in between, whom I would
never regard as anything but a true friend. But I don’t develop relationships
at the school gates the way my wife does: I think that’s a gender thing and
have no shame in stating so. I go to school to take and collect my son: it’s
not part of my social life. There are people there whom I like, who have been
guests of ours and us of them, always genuinely very pleasant affairs and I am
happy with exchanging pleasantries with them: but these don’t develop into more
meaningful conversations, so after the pleasantries I get back to my smartphone.
Yes, I’d help them out in a flash and I know they would us, as was shown very
clearly last winter when I was convalescing post-epilepsy op and Karen went and
fractured her ankle the day after I came home from hospital. Surely that’s
enough to class them as ‘friends’?

Well, you’d think so, so much so that I feel guilty about my inability to do
so. It’s not them, it’s me – and, potentially, what others have classed as my
tendency to ‘overthink’ things. I don’t think that’s possible: one can only
ever ‘underthink’, surely. And I, for one, just can’t ignore the lack of true
common ground upon which to build such a friendship. I can’t have silent
conversations based on inherent, implicit understandings: everything has to be
laid out, explained and placed into context, a context they may or may not
understand, let alone agree with. None of that means that I can’t have
enjoyable conversations or that I don’t look forward to them. It just makes it
hard for me to use the F-word the way I find it far easier to do with
Springsteen fans, Sheffield folk or Sheffield United supporters before even
finding out their name.

“But don’t you have kids to talk about?” comes the cry from the galleries. Yes,
we do. Is that a common, uniting subject? Tricky. At best. Kids can unite or
divide. It’s not a common subject as such: each parent talks about their own
kids, their own experiences. There are often touchpoints, for sure: but these
can all too easily become blue touch paper. It is hard to talk about your own
kids without starting to compare and contrast, whereas talking about football,
music or whatever you and your friends talk about is a more shared experience.
Even when you disagree on which is U2’s finest album, you are looking at things
from the same side. If you’ve got kids, you know where I’m coming from on this
one. As a parent, I’ve learnt a lot from talking to other parents, especially
parents of children older than mine who can offer a more detached yet
experienced view. But let’s not pretend it can’t be a double-edged sword:
questions like “And how’s your kid doing at school?” come loaded. I should
know, I’ve also asked them. We all have.

So: Springsteen, Sheffield, Sheffield United. Three
ready-made bases for a good chat. In fact, broaden that to music fans,
Yorkshire folk or football fans: I’m not that narrow-minded. For whatever
reason, I’ve come across very few of those in my twelve years here. One such
person ticks two of those boxes: little surprise that I felt comfortable in
dropping by unannounced to lend him a book earlier this year, no more so that I
ended up spending two hours there and having a lovely, natural, easy-flowing
conversation. I’d probably not seen him for about six years, other than from
the other side of a road to wave. But that didn’t matter: we could talk
Yorkshire, we could talk football (I can’t help it that he’s a Burnley fan), we
could talk. Simple.Oh, there is a fourth category. Doesn’t begin
with S, mind. Colleagues, co-workers, work… nah, no S. Anyway: yes, I do rate
colleagues amongst friends. Again, there is that common platform, be it during
our shared time in my current job or similar experiences working for organisations
of a similar nature. That instant recognition… it obviously helps when the
topic moves on to rock or football, but the connection is still there. Working in
marketing alongside sales reps in the technology sector can mean long and
challenging sales cycles, and the scars and successes you pick up along the way
don’t disappear in any great hurry. Afghanistan it ain’t, but bonds are still
established. When it’s with good guys, why would you not build upon them?

Avid readers of the 7S post will recall that Scriptures topped the list. And
there are dozens of people from our church whose company I enjoy, with whom I
can have pleasant conversations. But similarly I have to apply the handbrake,
ensure I don’t say anything incriminating. I take my relationship with God very
seriously and have done throughout my entire life, yet I’m far more likely to
listen to Kula Shaker than Graham Kendrick, or read books about Sheffield than
the Christian faith. In that, I am in a distinct minority. There is a chance that,
beyond the pearly gates, I will pay for this: there are certainly some CDs in
my collection for which I accept eternal punishment. In the meantime, maybe I
should downgrade from evangelical back to protestant: I’m so much better at
protesting than I am at evangelising. So the handbrake stays on as I watch my
every word: you can draw your own conclusions about what that means for those
relationships. In fact, somewhat bizarrely the person with whom I am most likely to let
my guard down is the church’s former leader: must be because he’s a Geordie.

By the way: outside of family, I don’t actually
know that many people in Sheffield. And most of the ones I do are friends of
the family, people who were around my relatives when I was around them. You
just have to trust my perverse mind when I tell you I wouldn’t struggle to
build friendships there by building them on those common foundations. Even with
t’other lot, Wednesday supporters… even their antagonism to Unitedites like me,
by itself, creates a common platform. Which brings me to one example: one
Michael Streets, who used to play football with my uncles for Sheffield
Centralians. He was even Best Man for one of them at their double wedding: Rog, I think, but folk have been getting that mixed up for years. Not surprising, given that all eyes were on yours truly, the cute little page boy! Anyroad… back then I’d see Mick at training: these days I see him in the
pub (Prince of Wales, Ecclesall Road; Saturdays, 6pm). I can go years without
seeing Mick, but when I do I reach out and give him a good old man hug. We are
both Sheffielders; we are both football men, even though he is “one of them”;
and we even share common medical traits which further strengthen that
foundation. I wouldn’t hesitate for a split second to call Mick a true,
lifetime friend. Now Karen’s only met him once at my cousin’s 21st
and that could have gone better, as he referred to Bristol as “in Wales”…heck, I giggled! (And still do, seven years later)

(I did share these feelings with Mick when I last saw him last August.
He looked me in the eye and told me to “F@€% off”, thereby proving my point
exactly. Top lad, our Michael. As I tell Karen, "the world would be a better place if there were more Mick Streets in it")

As you read all this gobbledygook, as well as
previous mutterings, you may be developing the feeling that I need to cast away
my rose-tinted glasses and look at Sheffield for what it is: my hometown, a
lovely city, but not a ball around my foot which should hamper my social
relationships. You may be crying out at the screen that I never lived an
independent life there: I never sought a job there, I never paid council tax
and moaned at how it was being spent there… ‘all’ I ever did was spend my holidays
and student days there and always in the protected environment of my
grandparents’ house. Lord knows, if I were in your shoes it’s what I’d be
doing, probably with “Have a word wi’yourself!” as the opening line. Lovely
thing is logic, isn’t it? Works best when looking at other people, at things
that don’t impact your life. But I’m struggling here…

…and have been doing all my life. Still, until
recently I’d struggled all my life with my Italian heritage. Only six years ago
did I go from ‘dislike’ to ‘tolerance’; only in recent weeks have I gone from ‘tolerance’
to ‘pride’. I’m still a Brit, a Yorkshireman and a Sheffielder, but I have
developed the ability to be proud of what Italy and my Italian relatives and friends
contributed to my make-up. I might even write a post about that later this
month: that and about how it’s not about Italy and Italians really, rather
about the community, the area, the locals. Because those are the people that
matter most, in general terms. Which is why it’s about Sheffield, for me: the
area, the locals. And I don’t just mean the bars.

Not that I’m adding an S to the 7S, mind – that works
as it is. Anyway, 36 years in and I’ve finally got to grips with my Italian
heritage. Give it another 36 and I may cast away these glasses. Which glasses?
Exactly.

As I said, I do feel bad about feeling this way
towards such a plethora of good people. I am not proud about it and, believe
you me, derive no pleasure from it, merely a disturbing feeling of discomfort. If
you are amongst those, if you feel I should call you a friend, you are probably
right: I apologise for my anal over-analysis which I’ve spelt out here and I
hope my complex, rather than suspicious, mind will get there sooner rather than
later. Just remember this: It’s not you, it’s me. And that’s why I still call
Sheffield home: because I would feel happy to walk into any pub and have a chat
with whoever’s at the bar. I would feel happy in counting the number of players
on each side in an Endcliffe
Park kickabout and ask/volunteer to even things up if required, as I did
countless times as a kid and a teenager, when my sole (no pun intended) (no,
seriously!) preoccupation in choosing shoes would that I’d always be wearing
something in which I could play football. Because sometimes you’re not too
fussed about going where everybody knows your name: you just want to be
somewhere where even strangers know who you are. Cheers.

(Just a
grumpy, mardy Northerner? Just another of those folk who hark on about how much
friendlier people are Up North, where t’dooers are never locked, compared to
Darn Saath? But then beggar off Darn Saath fer work? Dunno. I’m probably still wearing t’glasses. It’s best if tha
tells me.)

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About Me

Made in Sheffield, exported worldwide. Grew up near Genoa, Italy; returned to Sheffield for Uni (with some time in Nice thrown in for good measure) before falling South and then stumbling West to London, Slough and now North Somerset. Any further West and I'm going to get awfully wet. The 176m separating me from Sheffield generally shrink when I'm online.